


Unreachable

by zuzuzukas_dream



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Danganronpa
Genre: Angst, F/M, ambiguity??, dr1+2 spoilers, swearing (once or twice), this is a lead up to dr3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 13:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10617621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuzuzukas_dream/pseuds/zuzuzukas_dream
Summary: Makoto and Kyouko revisit old memories and reveal inner truths about themselves. Set after Super Danganronpa 2 and before Danganronpa 3. This may have a sequel post-Danganronpa 3 if I can be bothered. Focuses on ideas of death and betrayal? May be OOC at points. I haven't checked so much.





	

**Author's Note:**

> HI so i was angsty and wanted kirinae so i wrote this painful fic? idk i just kinda wanted to portray some struggles they have and stuff. the first line is metaphorical as well as literal. he needs the water (kirigiri) to survive, but is unable to take true hold of her and keep her in her life because she is such a powerful and individual force.

Makoto gasps and flinches. The water is colder than he expected.

  
Though, it's certainly nice to have any water at all. His hands, so clammy they'd become a home to all kinds of sticky dirt, benefit greatly from the quick wash.

Kyouko eyes him momentarily, possibly to suggest the use of the hot tap. He doesn't, however, so she continues to lean along the ledge and slip on her gloves. In the absence of the water runs silence.

"I'm not that dirty," he starts to explain in an effort for conversation. "It's not like how it was on Jabberwock. Yknow, the whole, 'We can smell your pits for miles' deal?"

That achieves a subtle laugh from her. The silence loses its tension. Her eyes glaze as if recalling the memory and she says, "Komaeda telling Hinata that he's dressed for Winter. Now, isn't that irony."

"Yeah," Makoto huffs, hauling himself to sit between sinks. "If heat stroke was programmed into the Neo, I'm sure he'd have gotten it. Just glad that he has people to babysit him now."

"Babysit," Kyouko repeats. "Naegi-kun. How rude. He's a grown man."

  
"I don't think any of them feel that way yet." On the topic, he adds, "I wonder when they will."

Gloved fingers curl around the back of Kyouko's phone. "For me, it was barely a few weeks. I suppose..." Her concentration slips momentarily as she taps something into a message. Then the phone, as quick as it appeared, vanishes beneath her blazer. "I suppose, considering they lost two whole years, it should be at least months before they're ready."

"And, not all of them are as mature as you. I'm still not entirely sure I'm twenty." Makoto's face lights up a little. "I mean, I bet you already felt like an adult."

Her face doesn't return the glow. "I wouldn't call that a good thing."

  
She has a point. Thinking on as his lips falter, his mind immediately reaches Komaru. Forced to become an adult before she's even eighteen, and with a mental age of even less. Indeed, she still smiles - her wide grin is possibly one of the few lights in the world that has yet to fade. She simply doesn't smile as often.

"Yeah," he says. "I guess I'm lucky to still be a bit of a kid."

  
Kyouko's hand comes up to tug on his cheek. He makes an unidentifiable noise of embarrassment.

"You're the tiniest baby," she says calmly, in possibly the most serious voice a person could muster. He's about to deny it when she adds, "And my favourite."

He doesn't, because instead he's simply smiling goofily at her. In fact, if she hadn't already pulled her hand away, he might've held it there and nuzzled it. Kyouko's eyes flicker back to the mirror, and her lips lay curved in the kind of manner that tells you it's hard to resist the smirk.

She touches up the foundation along her cheeks and then searches for what is then revealed to be lipstick. There's a kindness in his watching of her that is reserved for her only. A tenderness.

A few moments of this silence fall in before he speaks again.

"I think we match," he says. Her eyes befall him. "I mean - I'm small. You're tall. I'm a big kid, and you're mature enough to take the job as boss. Considering opposites attract and all, I think we make quite a cute team."

Clearly a little embarrassed by the blunt approach, Kyouko's lips spread into a thin line, and her eyebrows dip inward. "I suppose."

"Come on," he says, trying to coerce the romance out of her. "Me, the too-honest guy who does stupid things all the time. You, deceptive and smart. And - I mean deceptive in the best of ways. You've got a mean pokerface."

"Oh, stop," she says, and now she's showing teeth in a half-grin. Her cheeks are dusting like his. "You aren't that stupid. Only very... Ah, very..."

"Stupid?"

"No," she says. "Just brave. You wander dangerously close to the line that divides the two, mind you, but you're definitely brave." Now, she joins him on the ledge, a sink away from him.

"Okay, okay. Exaggerate if you want," Makoto starts, teasing, lolling his head to the side.

"I refuse to call you stupid for self-sacrifice. Not when your cause was the lives of others."

Now, it's Makoto's turn to be embarrassed. His words fail him and he finds himself sunken into his shoulders, double chin emerging.

"Naegi-kun," she says, dropping from their height of humour. "If anybody was stupid, back then - it was me."

"What?" he asks, genuinely shocked. "What - how? You literally saved all of us. Like, ten million times." His forehead creases, and he leans toward her.

One of the lights in the bathroom fades, and then others follow in succession. The room is now dim. Focused on her, Makoto makes no move to trigger the motion sensors.

The silver-haired woman takes her time to respond. It's in these few seconds that it occurs to Makoto he's brought her to an uncomfortable topic; he sees it in the shift of her hands at her sides. In the way she avoids his gaze. Of course, it isn't often that one makes Kirigiri Kyouko uncomfortable. He starts to change the subject.

"You know what I mean," she interrupts. "Surely."

It's in his heart that he knows. She looks directly into his eyes. His stomach drops, and he feels worse.

"I don't," he has to say, unfortunate for his moral compass that suggests he shut up and refrain from making her explain herself. But, considering the topic of his almost-death hasn't been brought up like this since, he figures also that it might not be the worst thing he's ever done.

There would have never been any pleading on Kyouko's part, but her attempt to avoid the situation has failed. Instead, she seems to force herself to talk.

"I figured that I didn't care about somebody like you," she explains. It doesn't clear up enough, however, and he continues to look at her. "I decided that I'd sacrifice you to save the rest of us. And, if that had been the way things went, it's incredibly likely that all of us would have been plunged into despair."

That thick silence Makoto has come to know seeps into their throats and their lungs. It leaves in its tracks a drought, and he forcefully swallows against it.

She isn't right to think that - he doesn't believe so. There would have been a way. With Kyouko's wit and life-long determination to survive all that has tested her, she would have managed to escape. She would have instilled the hope he died for within the others. It must be her dormant guilt that's clouding her judgement.

But, that's not it. He isn't the best at psychoanalysis, but this seems far more serious than just her feeling bad about mischaracterising him. Underestimation isn't so bad. He supposes it might be the weight of what almost happened during Mukuro's murder trial, but it doesn't entirely fit.

The silence is choking them. Any second now, it'll take their conversation with it, and Makoto won't be able to say anything. So, in light of that, he finds the words closest to him and throws them at her.

"You know," he starts, loud, and his hand is almost close enough to hers to make contact. The closest a person might ever get to her. His volume drops once he's gotten her attention. "I don't see it as stupidity. Or betrayal. You were only trying to do what I'd fought so hard for all that time. I'm sure there'd have been a way."

Kyouko, in that manner that only she seems to have, or that he has only noticed on her, does not even attempt to accept his side.

"There wouldn't have. Don't be so stubborn."

"Too bad I am stubborn," he replies. "You know yourself better than I do. You've never fallen at any hurdle. You'd have found a way."

She triggers the lights as she stands, hair uncurling from the smooth surface beneath their hands and whole body facing away from him. "You are wrong, Naegi-kun. We don't need to argue about this."

He follows her, although with less force in his movements. "Hey. No - we won't need to argue if you just let me talk. And, maybe if you stop being so down on yourself when all you were trying to do was use what you knew and survive!"

Silver hair gathers around her neck as she turns to face glinting eyes at him. Her jaw is tense, and from her towering height, her body language commands his surrender. Through gritted teeth, she drives home the point. "I'm not going to raise my voice at you."

Make no mistake. He understands why. It has taken him a while to do so, but he knows that there is no kind of malicious superiority in her now. It's closer to - fear?

Voice softening, lightening, he takes the mic once more. "Why do you hound yourself down? Do you really think you owe me so much as to not even let me say otherwise?" She starts to walk away, and he talks above the solid clicks of her heels. "Kirigiri-san! You may be my boss, but you're my best friend before any of that. I trust you! So, can you just be honest with me?"

"I have been honest," she snaps. "You have denied my honesty."

No. It's deeper than that. He's sure of it now as he works to keep in stride with her, out of the bathroom and down the corridor. "Are you sure? I mean - I mean, look. It just seems like you're feeling too bad about it to just be-"

"You," she says. For a moment, he thinks that's all she will say. She stops in her tracks, and he finds himself in front of her. "You were the first person, Makoto, who had truly struck me as an ally, in the longest of times."

His heart pounds in his ears. Looking at her sharp features, he daren't interrupt.

"I watched myself grow close to you. Detested it, knowing how it would end." Cold tones fill the corridor, which itself breathes an uncomfortable amount of empty space. "And, I had already gone through the motions of believing I'd lost you. That sparked nothing in me - not when I ran to your room, and the smell of rotten meat flooded my head, and I believed that you were already gone."

Makoto is frozen in place.

She is not at at all animated as she speaks, either. It is simply the pair of them, stood as statues in the corridor, staring at one another. Eyes growing tired. Hands tense at their sides.

"That's why I didn't think it would matter, Makoto. And, it didn't. Not until it was done, and you looked at me as though I'd driven a knife through you and said I loved you." Her voice breaks, and she pauses to take control of it. "I... had, for the first time, betrayed somebody who cared for me. Do you understand?"

A short nod is the only reply that Makoto can manage in his current state. An observant gaze takes him in at last, fully, and meeting it reveals she's even close to tears. That weight in his gut drops once more. He hates this. Wants to hold her. Wants to soothe her and kiss her.

But, not yet. "I do owe you. Of course I do. I tried to give your life so that mine could go on. My mother's legacy, my family's line of detective skill. When... all that truly mattered in the end was you. We trusted in you. We lived by you."

Makoto goes to deny her again - he doesn't believe she owes him a cent. He didn't die. He's here, now, and they've found love in each other, and they're on route to saving the rest of the world. But -- but. He must accept her feelings, as hard as that may be.

So, he nods, and in that action reveals that he, too, is on the brink of a flood.

"I love you," he murmurs. That's all he can say. The one sentence that manages to crawl its way from his brain. The one thing that she needs to know, then and there. "I love you."

"It's terrifying to me," she says, and the light catches a tear drop as it falls along her cheek, "that I almost lost something that I'd always wanted. And, it was down to me. It was my fault. I'd thrown you away before I'd even realised."

He takes her hands. "But, you have now-"

"No, Makoto. No, I-." She shakes her head, and rivulets of hair are unsettled from the statue's shoulders. In his, her hands shake. "I can't let it go like that. You have to understand. You want me to leave it behind, and you'll say I'm wrong to give you back what you deserve. You will ask me to go against what I believe only because you are kind, and I - I hate it."

"I love you." Again. The gap between them has closed almost entirely. There is a great horror within him - a mobile force that twists his insides and sends shivers down his spine.

Her forehead ghosts against his, and she faces the floor. "Makoto. Let me live in my guilt. You can't rid me of it."

"I love you."

"Please, just stop it. You have to do this for me."

He shakes his head and nuzzles into her neck, arms sliding to curl around her. Hold her close. "I can't let you. I don't want you to die."

"I don't have to die. I just-." Words fail her, and her breath catches in hiccups. At the sight of her, at the touch of her, he is absolutely out of sorts. She will not look at him, or hold him. That barrier of embarrassment and self-deprecation has them distanced once more.

He aches to be closer. "I love you," he murmurs. "I love you, I love you, I love you. You are enough. You are alive."

She sobs in reply, and his own composure finally breaks. Hands now at her shoulder blades, he drags her into him, wetting her blazer with his own tears.

"You are so... important to me. I can't do this without you. If you'd have... I-if you died in my place - Kyouko, I wouldn't have been able to do it-"

"No. You are strong," she whispers. Her fingers tug at the back of his shirt.

"I'm not. I'm not. I'm so... fucking scared. You- you don't get it."

"I'm scared too," she cries.

His nose has let out the waterworks too, making his entire face a mess. The tears won't stop. "I just want you. That's it, Kyouko. Tell me you won't take that away."

Again, she shakes her head into the side of his. He pierces his lip with his teeth, jaw painfully firm. "Kyouko, please."

"I cannot promise you anything. You know that. You know me."

"You can try to stick by this one. It's not just for me, it's for us, it's for the world - you are needed, Kirigiri-"

She thrusts him back now, ripping him from her body. One hand comes up to wipe her eyes.

There is a pause then, as Makoto stares at her, and as she avoids looking at him at all. Shoulders heaving, and hair now brushed from her eyes, she faces the ceiling. There is exhaustion written all over her. Two unstoppable forces have met. One must take on more energy than the other to move forward.

Makoto wants to be that force. "Kyouko. Have I - have we - not lost enough? Have we not cried enough?"

She closes her eyes and turns her head down again.

"You can't... promise me that you won't die. I'm not asking for that. I--" He regains his breath a little and licks over his bottom lip. It stings a little. "All... I need to know is that this -- reckless selflessness. That you won't let it hurt what we have."

She remains with her mouth firmly shut. He refuses to believe that she is still a wall that he is talking at rather than to, but even he is drained. Why is it always that they are so close - and then, abruptly, so far away? Is this the wreckage that adults leave behind on their children? Or, is this simply adulthood?

"I love you. I'll keep saying that until you want to kill me for it-"

"Won't you?"

He's caught off guard. Softly, quietly, she's said something, but he didn't hear it. In return, he looks at her with a puzzled expression.

"You'll do the same, then, won't you?" she repeats. "You... You won't die for me, either?"

It hurts. Immediately, it hurts. There is dread, and an adrenaline beat of fear. He knows he can't keep to that. She has an incredibly valid point - she's being smart, and she's just won. Makoto would do that for her. He would find a way out of it if possible, but... She's perfectly right. What he's asking from her is something he couldn't do himself.

Something like bitterness radiates from her as she laughs. But, it isn't quite that. No. She tilts her head to the side and wipes her eyes again. Exasperated, she fumbles one hand to his shoulder. Then, to his cheek. Her fondness of him, that warmth that she returns to him, is present in the palm of her hand.

"I'm grateful to you," she says. "I am. You want what's best for me, and you- you care for me, in that honest, bright, powerful way that you do. Overwhelmingly so. But-..." She then takes his other cheek too, and tilts his head ever so slightly. He places his hands on the backs of hers. "You're as much of a hypocrite as anyone."

His eyes close, and with them roll out more tears. Her thumbs wipe them away, and he feels her breath ghost against his face. She's right. Of course she is. He knows, deep down, beneath absolutely all of his willingness to be strong for her, to do what she needs, that he would give his life for hers. And, he would leave her alone.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, but she shushes him very gently, lips pursed. He repeats it, and she leans in to kiss him. Deeply, lasting more than moments.

"The last thing we should be to one another is sorry," she says, "when we're fighting for what the other wants most." She meets his lips again, and he presses back into hers with a burst of his own desperation for her contact. "We just want each other. We just want the world."

Something in him laughs, and in his aching state, he says, "That's not much."

There is something of a laugh in reply, but it sounds hollow. As though what has been revealed has been scooped out of her deepest self, and has left her weakened. It isn't so different for him, perhaps.  
As he looks to her now, he feels that same emptiness. A helplessness he had hoped to have left behind. The weight of it has him just wanting to tuck himself into her arms and hide there, but even in themselves - where is true safety?

"We'll be okay," she says. "Look at me, Makoto."

Her face is not convincing. The words are not convincing to him - not now. But, they are her face and her words, and in her voice there is the hint that she is trying just as hard to convince herself of them. She whispers them again, and he murmurs back, hands burying themselves in her hair.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is a lead-up to kirigiris "death" in dr3. i cracked it pretty early on that they were doing a parallel situation to dr1 chapter 5 - referencing kirigiri's burns, and then the sacrifice of kirigiri to save naegi. i read this as kirigiri believing she owed naegi for what he did for her, since hes the first person to give her that kind of dedication and belief? aaaaaa this is just kinda thoughts and stuff i guess more than an actual fic


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